Grisham book reveals how obsessed Trump was with press briefings — even giving wardrobe critiques afterward

Stephanie Grisham's new book, I'll Take Your Questions Now, recalled the obsessive way in which President Donald Trump would focus on press briefings. From the beginning, she witnessed how Trump would force Sean Spicer to say word-for-word what Trump told him, even if he knew it was a lie.

"I know firsthand how much pressure he placed on you," she wrote. "He watched the briefings, commented on everything from what you wore and what you said to what reporter you took a question from and what reporter you ignored. He expected and demanded that you say certain things regardless of whether they were true or not. Sometimes he dictated things word for word for you to repeat."

She assumed that the order to say the inauguration crowd size was larger than Obama was a "test" for Spicer to see his degree of loyalty.

"I remembered that lesson when I took over as press secretary and resolved to do whatever I could to avoid having Trump do to me what he'd done to Sean. I wasn't always successful, but I tried," she said.

Throughout her course as press secretary, there were no press briefings. While that may seem like a way of avoiding Trump's wrath, she claimed that it was at Trump's demand and not about her job safety.

She told ABC News in an interview this week that Trump had already suspended briefings when Sarah Huckabee Sanders was the press secretary.

"He said he didn't think we needed any more briefings. He spoke to the press two or three times a day directly so then my job was to work more behind the scenes, with print with regional and local," she said.

The new book is on sale today and you can read RawStory's coverage of it here.